Chef Cycles Into Town To Discuss Hunger

Chef Cycles Against Hunger

November 04, 1991|By LUCILLE RENWICK; Courant Staff Writer

Hunched slightly on their bicycles, with their chef's hats blocking the wind and the bottom of their white jackets flapping behind them, about a dozen chefs pedaled across the Bulkeley Bridge to the Old State House.

The short bicycle ride Sunday evening was to welcome David Kelman, a University of Hartford graduate who is cycling around the country to talk about hunger and prepared food recovery programs designed to allow restaurants, catering services and businesses donate unused food to food banks or homeless shelters.

"This trip is a way of educating people about hunger and the incredible waste of food that can be avoided if it's donated to places where it can be used to feed poor and hungry people," said Kelman, 27, who cycled about 130 miles from Massachusetts to Connecticut.

At the Old State House, Kelman and the cycling group were greeted by a small band from Lewis Fox Middle School that played a few tunes.

Kelman's arrival Sunday began a three-day visit to Connecticut, where he will speak to chefs' groups and visit with Foodshare, the regional food bank sponsoring part of his stay in the state.

Foodshare, which will officially open its headquarters in Windsor this week, has been running a prepared food recovery program for two years, said Mike Harrington, coordinator of the program for the organization.

The program, modeled after one in Atlanta, receives food donations from 67 restaurants and catering services, area colleges and businesses. The food is taken to area shelters, where it is usually used the same day, Harrington said. Kelman's travels around the country will bring the prepared food recovery program national recognition, Harrington said hopefully.

On Wednesday, Kelman, 27, is scheduled to receive the University of Hartford's first alumni recognition award for his work against hunger as part of the bicycle trip.

Kelman thought of the cycling odyssey last year after heading a catering service in San Francisco where he donated prepared, but unused, food to a nearby food bank. His trip combines a longtime

dream to bicycle across the United States and the need to educate people about prepared food recovery programs, he said.

He left San Francisco on his bicycle last May and has stopped in 16 states to speak to chefs, culinary students, food bank representatives and others about the hunger crisis in the country and the food recovery programs.

"I'm hoping that somehow I can make an impact," said Kelman, who is financing about 80 percent of the trip himself. Businesses and organizations are sponsoring the remainder.

For his arrival, about a dozen chefs from the Connecticut Chefs' Association waited at a car dealership in East Hartford to greet Kelman and ride with him to the Old State House. None of the chefs had met Kelman before his arrival.

"The Connecticut Chefs' Association believes in Foodshare and what David Kelman is doing and we wanted to show him we're behind him," said Joel Zimmerman, vice president of the group.

A small truck belonging to the association was decorated with a white banner reading "Connecticut Chefs welcome David Kelman for Foodshare."

"It's important for many of the restaurants, caterers and businesses to know that all the unused food they discard could be used to feed people who really need it," said Jim White, a chef at Travelers Insurance Co. White said Travelers has started donating food to the Open Hearth shelter for men.